


Flirt.

by exklusiv



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Friendships ahoy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-20 23:03:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15544131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exklusiv/pseuds/exklusiv
Summary: Teddy Trevelyan and Dorian Pavus are thick as thieves, but Dorian has a question about flirting.It's time to have a heart-to-heart.





	Flirt.

**Author's Note:**

> I have had this kicking around in a folder for a while and for some reason I've never posted it. You can all have it now.

Teddy Trevelyan had made friends with many people in the Inquisition. Those she was not friends with, she regarded with a cool, noble politeness she’d gleaned from watching her mother deal with the tiresome nobility in Ostwick. She considered all her friends dear to her heart, but no one was as dear to her as Dorian Pavus.

It should have made no sense. Her first introduction to the man was him beating demons to death with his staff as they sought to take out the Tevinter power held over the mages in Redcliffe. She, the timid girl that had learned not to seek the spotlight, should have shied away from him. But Dorian Pavus, most recently of Minrathous, the man who either commanded the spotlight or created his own, had sucked her up into a whirlwind of friendship the likes of which she had never known. Maker, flirting with Cullen, the man that sent her nerves alight and made her heart pound, took her ten minutes of steeling her nerves, but sending a compliment at Dorian and getting to know him was as easy as asking him the weather. Dorian brought out a wit in her Teddy had no idea she possessed and instilled in her a confidence she had never before known. Being around Dorian was simple and she had meant it, even after knowing each other only a short time, that there was no one she would rather be stranded with in time, future or present.

Even from the beginning, Teddy had always sensed that there was something different about the Tevinter mage. The beautiful serving girl in the tavern couldn’t turn his eye, but any soldier changing out of his armor could. Dorian was not overt about it, and made no indications he preferred men over women, but something just told Teddy it was true, despite his wholehearted reciprocity of her friendly flirting (lavender-eyed shadow goddess, he’d once called her, kissing her hand appreciatively when she’d sneaked into the wine cellar, unseen, and stolen a bottle of his favorite vintage for him). So it did not surprise her to find that Dorian had left Tevinter in large part because of his father’s attempt to change his sexuality through blood magic.

Teddy thought often of the exchange they’d had, Dorian and his father. Dorian, it seemed, thought of it just as often; as they searched for shards in the Emerald Graves, split away from Cassandra and Iron Bull, Dorian brought it up.

“You know, dearest Teddy. Here, let me—there you go,” Dorian said, offering Teddy a boost to reach a shard up high on a boulder. “I have a question for you.”

“Ask away,” Teddy said, reaching for the shard as she balanced on Dorian’s bent knee.

“I was thinking about… well, I was thinking about when we returned to Skyhold, after we met my father in Redcliffe.”

“What about it?” Teddy asked, groaning as she stretched. “Set me up a little higher, Dorian.”

“Brace yourself,” Dorian said, placing his hands on her waist and lifting her up. Teddy snatched the shard and waved it, signaling Dorian to put her down. “I was just thinking, my fine Marcher friend, that… well, I didn’t really think that you had taken our flirting so seriously before that.”

Teddy placed the shard in her pack. “Oh, I didn’t.”

“You didn’t?”

“Not at all,” Teddy replied, shaking her head. “It was all friendly from the beginning. There was nothing ulterior there, not with how I flirted with Cullen.”

“Ah, dear Cullen,” Dorian said, smiling. “That paid off grandly, didn’t it?”

“He kisses like a dream,” Teddy agreed, looking around for another of the shards. “But, back to your question. No, I had no intentions of pursuing you romantically. Why do you ask?”

“Well, it’s just,” Dorian began, following her over the rocks along the path. “When we got back, you said I’d led you on. I was just wondering why you’d said that.”

Teddy sighed loudly at Dorian’s tone of voice and sat down on a wide boulder, patting the spot next to her. “Alright. Come on, sit.”

“On the rock?”

“Sit,” Teddy commanded, raising an eyebrow. Dorian snorted and sat down next to her, looking at her curiously. 

Teddy looked out over the lush green trees of the Emerald Graves, thinking of how to word her response. “Dorian, when we got back, you were… sullen. That might be putting it too lightly, but you were definitely depressed. However you don’t want to think so, that whole exchange definitely bothered you. And, well… I know when a person doesn’t feel good about themselves. Believe me, I can recognize it from my balcony in Skyhold. You were definitely not in the best state of mind, and you were obviously dealing with something like… maybe not self-loathing, but you were definitely headed there.”

“So your first instinct was to tell me that you felt slighted.” Dorian hummed, thoughtful. “Sounds like something my mother would do.”

“I didn’t tell you that you’d led me on because I was upset over some lost relationship that never was, you tit,” Teddy groaned. Dorian raised an eyebrow at her as Teddy rubbed her forehead. “Dorian, do you remember what you said to me?”

“I… asked you what you must think of me.”

“You made it sound like you couldn’t believe I would want anything to do with you. I had to say something that let you know my opinion of you hadn’t changed at all.”

“What?”

Teddy smiled and linked arms with the befuddled mage. “Your response to me telling you that you led me on told me everything I needed to know, Dorian. You were so ready to apologize for yourself and you couldn’t tell me you would stop if I wanted fast enough. I told you that you led me on so I could tell you to not stop flirting with me.”

“I don’t quite follow you.”

“I had no other way to tell you that I love you just the way you are, Dorian,” Teddy said, leaning on his shoulder. “I could think of no better way to let you know that my friendship with you had not changed in the slightest. And in our friendship, we flirt. You call me a raven-haired beauty and I call you a Tevinter vision. I didn’t want anything that happened with your father to change who you are and how we spend time together because who you are is… well, the best friend I’ve ever had. In fact, you’re really my first friend, even in the Inquisition. I connected with no one else as fast as I connected with you.”

Dorian remained silent. Teddy pressed on. “I’m sorry if I made it seem like I was upset to discover your sexuality did not include me. That was as far from my intention as possible. I wanted only to make you feel loved and accepted for who you are. Because I do, Dorian. I love you and accept you for who you are. I’ll always pick this Dorian. You are worth the absolute world to me and flirting is what our friendship is about. Flirting and wine and books. I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

A silence fell over them, the only sound the birds in the trees, when Dorian sniffed and reached up to rub an eye. “This, right here, is why I prefer men! None of this emotional nonsense.”

“Oh, Dorian!” Teddy cooed, wrapping the mage in a hug. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry!”

Dorian chuckled and shook his head. “Less crying and more an errant tear of emotion. You wield love like a bloody weapon.”

“I shall smother Corypheus with sonnets.”

Dorian chuckled again, looking up at the sky. “Maker, this is her? This is the woman you put into my life?”

“I’ll desist, if you’d prefer.”

With pursed lips holding back a smile, Dorian looked at Teddy. “Desist? Don’t you dare.”

“I stand so instructed,” Teddy said, hugging Dorian tightly once before letting him go and standing. “Come on, we still have a few more shards to find and Cassandra will kill us if she and Bull finish before we do.”

“Lead on, lover.”

Teddy smiled. Dorian’s self esteem was as broken as her own, no matter how he tried to hide it. And they somehow had come together to make themselves a pair as thick as thieves. Together, they would be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> I liked that "desist? Don't you dare" line as an answer to Dorian's misgivings above all else, strangely enough. It wasn't until I wrote this down that I was finally fully able to articulate why. Sometimes, you just need to have a platonic opposite sex friend that wants nothing from you but company and the occasional cheeky comment.  
> Hopefully, you guys liked this. I like stories about supportive friends, and I hope you do, too.


End file.
